Eight Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed
by Spritz Reckle
Summary: Short, Sardonic, and Sharp. Slightly AU, the world ends


I do not own Golden Sun

Eight Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed

It wasn't that they were fighting a three headed dragon.

The world was withering, the strange phenomenon of humanity, its beginnings a mystery that has been eaten up by the past, about to end.

The interesting bit was that humanity imagined its own end. It foresaw it and resented the concept.

Now, making use of the most powerful delusions humanity had to offer, nine of them had been swept to the top of Mars lighthouse, where all but one were throwing their determination against a monster. Its nature wasn't important, merely that it was a miracle, appeared to stop them.

The forces of the four elements were swirling furiously around the top of the lighthouse that stood out red above the snow.

Each two of each of the four elements was at the head of a long, long line of escapes from defeat. And everything each had learned, each had gained was focused to bring them away from defeat once more.

Sheba was the first to go. Battling on the eastern side she let loose the arcane might of the storm sky, only to take back, a second later, when the foe turned all its eyes to the east, its own arcane might. It was a brilliant white. Sheba, who had no true beginning, met her ultimate end. Sheba, who fell from the sky, fell from the aerie of the lighthouse. She arced beautifully, hair and garments rippling through the air, finally held in the control of the wind.

Shock rippled though the others, and not though her. It passed first though Jenna, fighting beside her: in a moment her inside changed, though her outside remained in the fight, staff raised, she drew the fiery life of Mars into the other six and herself. It was Piers who was next inline. Catching the rise and fall northeast of himself, his face changed and became, in an instant, more unchanging. But still, as a warrior and a Mercury adept, he called down ice, he leaped up, and then, sword down, he struck. He enraged the foe and he didn't escape its response of physical might. Torn, he fell away, and fell to the stone. For the first time, his face seemed truly ageless.

Ivan was in the south west. The fight was falling away. The boy who held the legacy of Aeolus tried to change things. When all his might was called up, swirling around him in a bright display, the dragon snatched it all from him, then snatched more, his life, from within his meek body. As the Aeolian power of the past settled around him like drooping wings, the boy it had put all its action and hope into slowly knelt, eyes rolling back, and quickly collapsed.

Mia had seen no shortage of death in her past. She fancied she could see Imil if she took the time to glance a little to her left and pierce unfathomable distance. Now she saw Ivan's fall further to her left. She always did what she could. In battle that had always seemed enough, until now. She didn't despair, not as she felt the smooth sense of Mercury's power fall away from the balance around her, not as the power of Mars welled up out of proportion, not as a wall of flame rushed towards her eyes, not as her mind stopped thinking, not as her body instantaneously converted itself to smoke and soot.

The number of the fighters was cleanly halved. Only those from Vale were left. Kranden had gone, no one even saw what happened to him.

The four were erratically retreating, with the fight raging, with earth raging, with fire raging. They formed a rough line, Garret on the western end, Isaac next, west of his longest standing companion, and east of his friend and foe, then Felix, fighting steadily, and at the eastern end, Jenna, with perhaps the most spirit of all.

There was very little space atop the lighthouse. The fighters of Vale had to stand ground.

Garret was the first to try to try to withstand the dragon's advance. With his sword held before him in a mighty grip, he met with a mighty claw, both it and the blade shining red for one contested moment. But then the sword broke, and Garret broke. Bones shattered. He fell.

Isaac leaped, unthinking with rage and a feeling of futility, but thinking with instinct and a drive for life. His sword danced and swung, raw power pelted his foe, power of both his own and his companions. The monster was beaten back. It threw itself into the air and turned all its might upon the one before it. It crushed the one before it, scattering the energies, driven by his friends, trying to hold up Isaac's life.

Felix and Jenna were alone now. Brother and sister fought side by side. The power of both the earth and the flame surrounded both of them. They looked at each other just for one moment, no words exchanged, before turning as one back to the foe and battling as one with strength they had not imagined they possessed.

As those two battled, the ground far beneath them and their foe began to fall away. The building shook and trembled. Mars lighthouse collapsed, and together, Felix and Jenna fell with its debris down into oblivion.

Then, less than a day later, the same thing happened to Prox, they didn't even flee south. And then, bit by bit, the world ended, as it had to, from the very beginning.

The world died. Few of the scatter of simple cities of Weyard even had more warning than that of the abyss rushing into sight, no cities heard the news from any others. Each continent, each island, was consumed. All the great works of the past were eaten up by finality.

Lemuria was the last to go, the city barely reacted to the encroaching nothingness.

The rate of decay had increased and increased: one moth from that battle, there was nothing left.

…It wasn't that they were fighting a three headed dragon…


End file.
